Return to Haven (Empire Rising #3) ★★★✬☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Return to Haven
Series: Empire Rising #3
Author: David Holmes
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 290
Words: 111K

From the Publisher and Bookstooge.blog

The revelation that the human race is not alone has sent shockwaves throughout Earth’s naval powers. Suddenly all eyes have turned to Haven and the trade routes to the Vestarian and Kulrean homeworlds.

Thinking he has nothing to lose, Haven’s First Councilor puts into motion a plan that threatens to turn star empire against star empire. As a result, Captain James Somerville finds himself thrown into the thick of battle once again. Yet not everyone in the Admiralty is enamored with his brash style of command and this time, his reckless actions may finally catch up with him.

James faces a court martial that is used by the politicians to gain popular support for annexing Haven and he marries one of Haven’s leading politicians.

Meanwhile, India has invaded Haven and means to subdue it before any other of the Space Powers can do anything to stop them.

---

Captain Happy Pants, to help bring the lost colony of Haven into the British Fold, marries Sexy Lost Politician, thus making her Lady Happy Pants. So long Ensign Captain Chicky Boo. You will be missed.

With Space India invading Haven, a group of special marines go all guerilla warfare with the dissidents. It was the kind of action I like. There was still a lot of space action though, with missiles and lasers and stuff, so if that does it for you, you’ll still enjoy this.

While I am not wildly excited about this series, I am thoroughly satisfied with each book so far. That’s all I can truly ask for.

★★★✬☆

• All of My “Empire Rising” Reviews

Celestial Prism - MTG 4th Edition

The Rogue Retrieval (Gateways to Alissia #1) ★★★✬☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Rogue Retrieval
Series: Gateways to Alissia #1
Author: Dan Koboldt
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 263
Words: 90K

From the authors site & Bookstooge.blog

Stage magician Quinn Bradley dedicated his life to a single purpose: headlining for a major casino on the Las Vegas strip. But just before his dreams come true, two modern mercenaries show up to make him a puzzling offer. Half a million dollars for six months on a private assignment. Their corporate employer has discovered – and kept secret – a gateway to a pristine medieval world called Alissia.

For fifteen years, they’ve studied it beneath a shroud of secrecy. Now, the head of their research team has gone AWOL, with a backpack full of disruptive technology. They’re sending in a retrieval team, and they want Quinn Bradley to come along. His talents for illusion, backed with the company’s considerable resources, should make for some convincing magic.

It will need to be convincing. Because Alissia has the real thing.

The AWOL guy is now the King of the most powerful country on Alissia and Quinn finds out the hard way that impersonating a magician is a very serious matter. Quinn ends up in Magician Land and the rest of the crew try to make it back to the portal as they dodge assassins from a rival corporation.

Everyone who is still alive makes it back to Earth and the book ends with Quinn getting contacted for another mission, which he is eager to take.

---

Mogsy reviewed Koboldt’s latest book, Silver Queendom, back in October and that put him on my radar. Glad she did.

Portal fantasy. Pretty decent. Plan on reading the rest of the trilogy. Not much else to say. Not because anything was bad but because I’m tired of writing. Maybe I’ll have more to say about the next book. Probably depends on how many other reviews I write the same day.

Oh wait, there was an awesome He-Man easter egg in this book. I chortled quite jollily when I read it. Yep, now I’m done.

★★★✬☆

Blogshido: The Way of the Blogger

Blogshido. The Art of Blogging. The Way of the Words Warrior. Keyboard Ninjitsu. This ancient art is as many faceted as there are people who practice it. I will not even attempt to cover everything associated with this wondrous art today, but instead I will focus on the specific kata known as The Monthly Review.

I have made this aspect of Blogshido fully my own. To the point where I have a kata all my own, which I call the Roundup & Ramblings. Now, it might surprise you (but hopefully not) to learn that I began to practice R&R not because everyone else was doing it and I wanted to be popular and fit in. Someone who is reading this may even think to themselves “Then what is the point?”. I forgive you and to show that I really have, I have a cookie, a nice glass of milk and your binky blanket just waiting for your nap-nap.

POINT ONE to Bookstooge-san for discombobulating his opponent

Other practitioners of the Monthly Review have their own reasons and methods. My goal is not to judge them. A true master of Blogshido knows what works for him may not work for others and accepts that knowledge, thus making him even more Masterly.

POINT TWO to Bookstooge-san for being so masterly

No, my goal in starting my Roundup & Ramblings were very simple. A very small force may redirect a larger force away from itself and thus Blogshido teaches us that small efforts not only can be effective but that they use less effort and thus prolong your stamina in a battle.

POINT THREE to Bookstooge-san for prolonging his stamina and thus being able to blog for years and years and years.

My blog is mainly a review blog of books with a smattering of non-review posts thrown in. Soon after being married it became evident to both Mrs B and me that she had zero interest in the books I was reading and reviewing but was very interested in the random thoughts that popped out of my head. This laid the foundation of me linking up all of my non-review posts in one easy to access place.

POINT FOUR to Bookstooge-san for thinking of his wife

Once I began doing that, I realized that it didn’t need to stay there and I could include lots and lots of ads, errr, data. Thus the power of Blogshido came full circle. My kata of Roundup & Ramblings ended where it had begun. I was using my own energy to power others which in turn empowered me to overcome them all. Thus my mastery was complete.

POINT SET, MATCH AND WIN for Bookstooge-san winning at Blogshido

I bow humbly before you all, as a true master.

Business (Bone #20) ★★★☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Business
Series: Bone #20
Author: Jeff Smith
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 21
Words: 1K

From Boneville.fandom.com/wiki/

Fone Bone, Thorn, and Gran’ma Ben continue their trek to Barrelhaven. Upon reaching an overlook of the village, Fone Bone remarks that the Barrelhaven looks peaceful, to which Gran’ma Ben warns that “looks can be decieving.”

At the tavern, dragons are on the villagers’ minds. When approached by Lucius with an offer of another round, Wendell and Euclid refuse, but immediately accept an offer from Smiley, as do other patrons. Lucius becomes infuriated at the town’s obsession, and Phoney and Smiley muse over their plans, with Phoney admitting he has no plans to slay a dragon, as they aren’t really dangerous. When Jonathan Oaks orders from their end of the bar, Lucius confronts Phoney in the pantry. To Phoney’s protests, he plans to call off the bet, as he doesn’t find it worth riling up a mob, and because Phoney is disrespecting the Dragons’ wishes to remain hidden. Phoney challenges Lucius to tell the villagers the truth, but leaves him fuming when he makes no action to do so.

In the woods, Gran’ma suffers an attack of the Gitchy Feeling. The trio is ambushed by one of the Two Stupid Rat creatures.

---

Phoney is scum of the earth. I mean, he’d make a perfect villain here. It is really tough trying to figure how to deal with him here. Yes, he’s Fone’s cousin and doesn’t seem to want to bring harm to Fone but on the other hand, he’s willing to do almost anything to anyone to get what he wants. His little talk with Lucius about “honesty” was the real kicker for me. He twists the meanings of words to make them do what he wants and he manipulates them so as to manipulate Lucius too. He’s exactly the kind of person that should be throttled, because he’s pure poison. We do find out from Lucius that the dragon wants to remain hidden. Why? We still don’t know.

The ending with Fone, Thorn and Gran’ma Ben getting ambushed by 2 rat creatures is supposed to be tension filled and create that “oh no, what is going to happen” feeling, thus leading you on to buy the next issue when it comes out. The rat creatures are so incredibly stupid though, so I’m expecting something very clownish to happen that’ll rescue Our Crew.

I’ve also decided that I’ll read up through issue 27 and then make the switch to the omnibus versions. Those contain 7-10 issues in each volume and thus you get a lot more story in a volume. But that won’t be until the end of this year at the earliest. I hope I can hold on until then 🙂

★★★☆☆

• All My “Bone” Reviews

World War Cthulhu (Cthulhu Anthology #9) ★★★★☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: World War Cthulhu
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #9
Editor: Glynn Barrass
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 365
Words: 137K

From the Publisher & Table of Contents:

The world is at war against things that slink and gibber in the darkness, and titans that stride from world to world, sewing madness and death. War has existed in one form or another since the dawn of human civilization, and before then, Elder terrors battled it out across this planet and this known universe in ways unimaginable.

It has always been a losing battle for our side since time began. Incidents like the Innsmouth raid, chronicled by H.P. Lovecraft, mere blips of victory against an insurmountable foe. Still we fight, against these incredible odds, in an unending nightmare, we fight, and why? For victory, for land, for a political ideal? No, mankind fights for survival.

Our authors, John Shirley, Mark Rainey, Wilum Pugmire, William Meikle, Tim Curran, Jeffrey Thomas and many others have gathered here to share war stories from the eternal struggle against the darkness. This book chronicles these desperate battles from across the ages, including Roman Britain, The American Civil War, World War Two, The Vietnam Conflict, and even into the far future.

Table of Contents

Loyalty by John Shirley

The Game Changers by Stephen Mark Rainey

White Feather by T.E. Grau

To Hold Ye White Husk by W.H. Pugmire

Sea Nymph’s Son by Robert M. Price

The Boonieman by Edward M. Erdelac

The Turtle by Neil Baker

The Bullet and the Flesh by David Conyers & David Kernot

Broadsword by William Meikle

The Ithiliad by Christine Morgan

The Sinking City by Konstantine Paradias

Shape of a Snake by Cody Goodfellow

Mysterious Ways by C.J. Henderson

Magna Mater by Edward Morris

Dark Cell by Brian M. Sammons and Glynn Owen Barrass

Cold War, Yellow Fever by Pete Rawlik

Stragglers from Carrhae by Darrell Schweitzer

The Procyon Project by Tim Curran

Wunderwaffe by Jeffrey Thomas

A Feast of Death by Lee Clark Zumpe

Long Island Weird by Charles Christian

The Yoth Protocols by Josh Reynolds

---

Much, MUCH better than that stupid Black Wings of Cthulhu I read previously. This was proper cosmic horror with eldrich elder gods being summoned to our world. Of course, most of the stories end with the main characters being able to fight off the intrusions, but it came down more to the eldrich power simply not caring enough to make the effort to overcome the main characters. But the stories where the eldrich horrors do break through, oooooooh yeah, it gets baaaaaaad. And that is goooood!

One of the stories is a King in Yellow story, Cold War, Yellow Fever, and that is what elevated this from a pretty good 3 ½ star read to a darn good 4 star read. It was about what an extrusion of Carcosa into Cuba would look like during the 1960’s. While the King himself doesn’t make an appearance, his domain of madness is enough and I loved every second of it.

Even outside of that, the stories were pretty good. No fancy pants pretentious wankers writing balderdash but instead we had authors writing cracking entertaining stories about the madness hiding in the darkness, just waiting to devour us. THAT is what Cosmic Horror is about.

Glynn Barrass was one of the editors and so far, he’s done excellent work in the stories he’s chosen. Well done sir, well done. Now let’s have a cage match between him and that pustulent excrescence ST Joshi.

★★★★☆

• All of My “Cthulhu Anthology” Reviews

Fullmetal Alchemist #7 ★★★★☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Fullmetal Alchemist #7
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Author: Hiromu Arakawa
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 187
Words: 9K

From FMA.fandom.com

“Where did Alphonse Elric go during the few short minutes he was wiped from existence, body and soul? From a secret lair in the city of Dublith, a group of outcasts kidnaps Alphonse to find the alchemical secrets of his creation! It’s up to Ed (and a certain housewife) to go into the Devil’s Nest and rescue his brother. But the criminals of the Devil’s Nest aren’t exactly human either. Now, Al must fight a homunculus-an artificial human being- and the streets of Dublith will run red with blood…”

---

This was good! We finally get some serious butt kicking going on by lots of various people, so it’s not just State Alchemists ka-blooey’ing people or Scar exploding bodies. We get chimeras, successful ones, unlike the poor girl and her dog a few volumes back. It did make me question WHY the alchemist that did that to his wife and then daughter wasn’t brought onto the project for the successful chimeras. Felt like sloppy story telling.

But Al, the big suit of armor brother, getting “kidnapped” and allowing it to happen for a chance to get a body back, well, he shows a lot of brains. And then when Ed comes rampaging in to take on the homunculus, we find out a LOT more about homunculi in general and we see why Ed is a state alchemist at such a young age. He’s not only powerful but also very smart.

Then we have President Fuhrer King Bradley getting involved. Once he overhears that there’s a homunculus involved, not only does he send down Major Armstrong (the biggest and handsomest State Alchemist) with a battalion of shock troopers, but he makes an appearance himself and almost single handedly takes down chimeras and the homunculus, without batting an eye. It’s easy to see the power he has harnessed has allowed him to become the leader of the country. But it’s also revealed that he has the symbol of the ourobouros (the snake eating its own tail) on his eye and so far, only homunculi have had that symbol. So either it can be used for other purposes OR Bradley himself is a homunculus. With the order to exterminate the nation of Shamballa, and therefore its attendant priests with their unique power (as we’ve seen through it’s misuse by Scar), coming directly from Bradley, it would appear that the power of Shamballa is something that the followers of the ourobouros fear. My vote is that Bradley is a homunculus. Which means he’s ultimately evil and if that plays out, I hope he gets his.

Knowing my luck though, the manga-ka will pull an old fashioned switch-a-roo and reveal some info that changes everything at the worst possible moment. So I’m not placing my dollar just quite yet.

Ahhh yes, the art. Blah, blah blah. The symmetry was totally blah, blahh but I found the use of different pen styles blah, blah, blah. In short, blah, blah blah unless you’re really into that stuff and then I’d probably have to say blah, blah, blah, but just like with Bradley getting my vote for being an evil homunculus, don’t hold me to blah, blah, blah because it might just change to blah, blah, blah at any time. That’s the wonderful thing about art, it can totally blah, blah, blah.

★★★★☆

• All My “Fullmetal Alchemist” Reviews

The Silent Seven (The Shadow #7) ★★★✬☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPresss & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Silent Seven
Series: The Shadow #7
Authors: Maxwell Grant
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 142
Words: 46K

From Thelivingshadow.fandom.com

A violent crime wave swept New York — ingenious, well-planned escapades masterminded by the Silent Seven, a vicious underworld conspiracy. Hooded criminals, meeting in secret, known to each other by an ancient ritual and matching scarab rings, they plotted to terrorize the city.

Detective Joe Cardona was baffled. First one murder, death by poison pin prick; then another, a cold-blooded execution. The sole clue to both, a pair of dice showing seven. He knew only man could penetrate the inner sanctum of the den of evil — The Shadow. Moving with an uncanny stealth, the master crime fighter carefully lays a brilliant trap. if his cunning were enough to defeat these evil angels, the last laugh, that eerie chuckle, would be his once again!

---

Another good Shadow read. I was thinking about giving this 4stars because I really enjoyed the idea of the Shadow taking on a whole group of hidden crime masterminds but then they ended up acting pretty stupid and so I bumped it down that critical half-star. Plus, allowing themselves to be infiltrated by some schlub didn’t measure up to the mark of Master Villain in my mind.

Harry Vincent almost getting crushed to death in a room with a descending ceiling though, that was great. That guy is the world’s foremost idiot and I like to see him suffer. I know the chances of him actually dying are zilch, but I can always hope. Without hope, life is miserable 😉

Nothing about this book, aside from the villains not living up to my expectations, was a hindrance. It was smooth sailing and a good adventure story. Keep’em coming Grant!

★★★✬☆

• All of My “The Shadow” Reviews

Cave People - MTG 4th Edition

April '23 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels – 13 ↓

Short Stories – 0 ⭤

Manga/Graphic Novels – 4 ⭤

Comics – 7 ⭤

Average Rating – 3.25 ↓

Pages – 4049 ↓

Words – 1123K ↓

The Bad:

Captain of the Monte Cristo – 1star of pure crap

Web of Spiderman #6-9 – 2stars of drivel and bologna

The Good:

The Knight of Swords – 5stars of Eternal Champion’ness

Murder by the Book – 4.5stars of Nero Wolfe. ’nuff said

Galahad at Blandings – 4.5stars of Wodehouse succeeding at making me jovial.

Movie:

Shrek 2 was a great movie. While not quite as “deep” as the first movie, I found it to be funnier. Looking forward to talking about the third one in May.

Miscellaneous Posts:

• Conceptualization Beta
• Burrowing – MTG 4E
• Happy Resurrection Day! 2023 Edition
• Carnivorous Plant – MTG 4E
• An Ode to Energy Drinks
• Carrion Ants – MTG 4E
• PSA – WordPress: We Need Ads, Lots of Ads
• Dungeons & Dragons Book Tag
• Castle – MTG 4E

Personal:

Mrs B was fully asymptomatic so she was back to her regular self. Working, eating, visiting, she was back. I hadn’t realized how much of a burden it was until even the shadow of her illness was gone.

We ate out a LOT this month. My mom and Mrs B were going to go to a women’s retreat at my former church one weekend but the entire staff came down with covid in about 24hrs, so it was cancelled. So mom stayed with my bro and sisterinlaw and we spent the weekend visiting a lot. We also took a young couple at church out to dinner to get to know them better. Man, it made me feel old. I’m only in my mid-40’s but they are in the early to mid-20’s and recently married and I was just laughing on the inside almost the entire time. It was great!

Part way through the month a memo went out that our hours were going to be changing to 48hrs per week. That was going to be a killer and I wasn’t sure how we were going to actually do that. Thankfully our office manager told us that the reality was our hours (field crew) were going to be staying the same and so I’m still at 40-45hrs, which is fine. That was a big relief.

On Resurrection Sunday we were invited to an Easter Dinner with a family at church. They also invited another couple. Unfortunately, the female half of the other couple tends to talk non-stop when she’s not completely comfortable, to the point of cutting other people off and not letting conversation flow. We were hoping that since she and her husband are comfortable with us (we’ve gone out to a great mexican place several times) that she’d be ok. It didn’t work out that way and our plans to get to know the host family came to naught. They nor us could get a word in edge-wise. It simply reinforced my view that people, even when you like them, are jackasses.

I did get pretty close to posting only 1 post a day for the whole month. Much better than in March. I’m proud for not going crazy again 🙂

Cover Love:

Cassilda’s Song edited by Pulver was the clear winner for the cover love this month. The tattered, yellowish robe is close to what I imagine the King in Yellow himself wears.

Plans for Next Month:

I know I have moved a lot into the visual medium a lot more than even 2 years ago. Comics, manga, MTG picture posts, I feel like my focus is shifting. I don’t know how comfortable I am with that. And I say that because I am thinking of adding a once a month post depicting some artwork. I’m still tossing that idea around in my head, so we’ll see if it happens this month or not.

Other than that, it’s business as usual. Book reviews on Tuesdays and Thursdays with the occasional but random Sunday and Saturday. Magic posts on Mondays, manga on Wednesdays and various comics on Friday. Then random stuff on random Sunday and Saturdays 😀 Routine is a great thing!